America's space program is at a
crossroads. This year, the Space Shuttle fleet is expected to be
retired after nearly 30 years of ferrying astronauts and equipment
into space. In addition, there have been calls to have its immediate
successor -- the Ares
I launch vehicle which would be topped with an Orion
crew capsule -- shelved altogether.

A 155-page report issued
in November 2009 by the Augustine Panel made a number of
recommendations on which direction to steer NASA in the future. The
recommendations included 1) hitching rides into space using
spacecraft from other nations or private contractors, 2) keeping the
Space Shuttle and International Space Station programs alive, albeit
in more limited roles, and 3) shifting the focus from returning to
the moon and instead aiming for Mars.

The Augustine Panel also made it clear
that the estimated $145 billion cost to return to the moon by 2020
would not be possible given NASA's $18.7 billion yearly allowance for
all operations.

According to a new
report by Space News, it appears that the Ares 1 launch
vehicle and the Orion crew capsule may be put on the chopping block.
President Obama is not expected to give NASA the $1 billion increase
in its yearly budget that had been hoped for to help further develop
the Ares program.

President Obama's 2011 budget for NASA
aligns closely with the recommendations of the Augustine Panel. The
budget calls for the the use of commercial spacecraft and rockets to
carry astronauts into space instead of relying on the behind
schedule, cost-overrun Ares program. Another Augustine Panel
carryover is the decision to bypass the moon and instead gun for
near-Earth asteroids and onward to Mars.

The Wall
Street Journal says that the efforts to initialize the
private sector -- including startup firms -- for carrying astronauts
into space will be a "multi-year, multi-billion-dollar
initiative". Private firms are expected to receive roughly $200
million during the first phase of the program. The total amount doled
out within the first five years could balloon to more than $3.5
billion according to sources familiar with the details of the budget.
The funds for the private ventures would be pulled from NASA's yearly
$18.7 billion budget.

Industry stalwarts like Boeing and
Lockheed Martin are expected to benefit from this new initiative, but
smaller firms like Space
Exploration Technologies would also be vying for NASA dollars.

Not surprisingly, there is opposition
to the there mere mention of NASA outsourcing crew vehicles to the
private sector. Charles Precourt, a senior exec at Alliant Tech
Systems remarked that such proposals are "really radical"
and that they are "extremely high risk". In addition,
Precourt said that whatever option is selected for the future
direction of NASA must be accompanied by a subsequent increase in its
budget.

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To be honest, NASA has been slow for the past few decades, sure it still does some great things, but consider it's budget vs other agencies and what it was capable of doing pre-Shuttle, it leave a bit to be questioned

Lots of ideas and proposals get started one day and thrown out the next, the Ares series being just another one of them. I can't imagine how much of their budget this consumes.

All that said, this radical change in NASA's operations can make or break them, since we realistically can't hope for anyone to get them the money they need to work on their own anymore, at least not until China catches up, then it will be on every politician's agenda

Just compare space vs military industry. Which one is more successful? The first one has budget of only 18B and the second one has more that 550B. And yet, the space industry has done much MUCH!!! more than the military.I recommend US to mind our own business and focus on technology and well being for all of the humanity. Not sticking it's nose in every war hole in the world

I'm pretty sure that NASA and space-research has contributed a lot more to most ordinary people than military-research has, and for a tiny fraction of the cost. There's lots of things we use every day that came out of space-research or were greatly improved by it such as integrated-circuits essential for almost everything these days, and microwave ovens essential for fast and easy cooking, whereas the vast majority of what comes out of military-research is useful only for power-mad dictators.

Given the cold-war ended decades ago and economic might is now more important than military might, I'd rather see money spent on non-military research as we have good enough bombs already.

I'm pretty sure that NASA and space-research has contributed a lot more to most ordinary people than military-research has

I mean this in the nicest of ways but that's about the most ignorant statement I've seen in awhile. You should maybe research the facts before making such in uninformed statement. Aside from the obvious transfers of weapons and armor related equipment being developed by the military that is now in use by your local police forces and such there are numerous things you have an use now that was made possible by the military.

Do you like using the Internet? You can thank the military for that.

Do you like using GPS equipment? You can thank the military for that.

Those are just 2 right off the top of my head. You can thank the military for alot of technology and conveniences you have today. There are just too many things to list.

That's true for a lot of shuttle pilots, but otherwise is a big exaggeration.

"The military never sent a man to the moon, but NASA didn't stop 100's of nuclear warheads being parked 100 miles from the tip of Florida."

Say what? It was a diplomatic solution that ended that crisis. We're damn lucky that the generals on both sides were ignored by the politicians as their advice was rather hawkish to say the least.

Frankly though this whole comparison is not entirely fair. It would be better to ask whether the civilian space program has accomplished more then the military's space program. In other words how much did we benefit from the multi billion dollar spy satellites, communications satellites, early warning satellites etc. Since a lot of that work is classified we may never know the answer to that. All we do know is that the military's program is just as "good" at going over budget and behind schedule.

While we're getting into speculation here, it's been argued that Sputnik and the space race actually did more harm than good. Rockets are an incredibly inefficient way to put stuff into orbit. NASA resorted to it as the quick and dirty (and expensive) way to get stuff into orbit. It's been speculated that had the space race never occurred and the USAF/NASA continued their research along lifting bodies, we would already have sub-orbital hypersonic transports between NY and Tokyo by now.

From a practical standpoint, that would be a lot more useful than planting some flags on the moon and bringing back a few hundred pounds of rocks.

The X-15 is not a lifting body, it's a rocket with wings. It also flew after Sputnik. The airforce did have their own human spaceflight program but did not get very far. And NASA has done a wealth of research on lifting bodies.You might actually say it was airforce interference in the shuttle project that negatively effected it, as there was a time when the the hope was it was supposed to launch every military payload, no doubt adding all sorts of design requirements that were necessary to the military but not to anyone else.Ironically it's the airforce itself that's taking the best ideas out of that program and resurrecting the old lifting body research, and pushing their unmanned shuttle, the X-37.

"it's been argued that Sputnik and the space race actually did more harm than good."

It's also been argued successfully I think, that without Sputnik we would not have the internet. (It was Sputnik that caused the creation of DARPA, which was basically given a lot of money to work on any project that would push US technology forward. This work even extends to computer graphics in fact).

"NASA resorted to it as the quick and dirty (and expensive) way to get stuff into orbit."

You mean the only way to get to orbit with existing technology.

"It's been speculated that had the space race never occurred and the USAF/NASA continued their research along lifting bodies"

Here's what I make of it. Obama, who hasn't run so much as a lemonade stand in his lifetime, knows how to run NASA better than NASA. Can build cars better than GM and it's engineers. And a man who couldn't figure out how to use a bandaid if his life depended on it is also a health-care expert.

Let's stay on topic shall we? Whether you like what he thinks or not, it's the president's JOB to give NASA it's agenda. It's a government agency! Hello!The president tells them what to do, and the NASA administrator's job is to get that done. Period.